You don't need stats to tell you that Dirk completely outplayed Lebron that series, you can tell just by watching. If you went by stats alone you would think Lebron actually played well in the game where he got a meaningless triple double.

True, but his fans will talk as if no such thing happened, and it was the fault of Wade etc. Which is why this 4th quarter pic is better than going back and forth of arguing and denying.

Go read a book. This has always been true, it is not a new phenomenon. Just because you had this experience does not make the experience universal. Leonard Koppett's [i]24 Seconds to Shoot[i] is the definitive history of the NBA before 1970 and has player stats mentioned quite a bit to prove certain players worth (Chamberlain, Russell, Robertson, Baylor, Pettit, etc...).

Among other things, Koppett is a statistician. Of course he's going to mention stats. This in itself is not proof of anything.

True, but his fans will talk as if no such thing happened, and it was the fault of Wade etc. Which is why this 4th quarter pic is better than going back and forth of arguing and denying.

Or you could look at it this way. Based on the Mavs defensive assignments, it was in the Heats best interest to run their offense through Wade instead of James. And I say this because James drew the Mavs best man defender in Marion and then Stevenson.

The problem was James didn't assert himself on the defensive end. Marion and Terry repeatedly scored on James. That was a huge reason for the Heats undoing.

Nowadays we have all the tools we'd need to enjoy the game of basketball. We can watch/re-watch a game anytime we want. In any quality we'd like.

People all over the world can watch the game. And now, more than during any era in NBA history, people are totally focused on stats. They'll find a way to make the Heat a top 3 championship team. Ever.

They'll bring up nifty stats and crunch numbers to show why Bron is a better PF than, let's say, Dirk. People will pull out boxscores to show Brandon Jennings had a great season and was a top 10 PG.

Not wanting to sound like an old nagger, but I remember when we watched games, and could talk about how great a team or player played, we could use what we saw in the game, during a season, to discuss which team was doing better, or had a better chance to win the championship or even series.

We hardly discussed which player deserved to be a top 5 defensive player or which shooting guard had the best post up game.

When did this start? Why are we doing this? Is it because of the internet? Is it because everybody can have an opinion without being held accountable for it?

Nah, it's ignorance. It's always been that way. Stats = end result. That's good and all, but it's more important HOW you got there and what happened, when comparing things.

Same with awards or accolades. Even Nobel Prizes or Oscars. You can't just say because X then Y is better. That's a shallow way of looking at things. Unfortunately, you can't prove it wrong, either.

So it's easy to say so and so averaged this amount of points, therefore he is a better scorer. CHECK DA STATS.

It provides access to stats that was never available in the past, which enables people who don't watch or understand the game to chime in, protected by anonymity. They can't be wrong if they simply quote numbers.